


Project Novo

by Kaimidnite



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Multi, Post-Jurassic World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:45:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaimidnite/pseuds/Kaimidnite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of the legal fallout after the Indominus Rex destroys Jurassic World, Claire Dearing and Owen Grady oversee Project Novo, a program designed by InGen to test the intelligence of predatory and non-predatory dinosaurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“I still can’t believe you signed on to this,” said a tall and supermodel slim redhead, surveying the man standing next to her. Owen Grady cast his jade green eyes away from the incredible view of a tropical rainforest in front of them to meet his lover’s gaze. “If I didn’t help orchestrate this madness then they would’ve got some other half-qualified goon with no idea how dinosaurs work to do it. I’m probably the one person who knows most about the minds of predatory dinosaurs,” He pecked her on the cheek, “ ‘Sides you, of course.”  
After the disaster of the Indominus Rex two years prior, neither Claire nor Owen ever expected to be standing on the roof of Jurassic World’s control center again. And yet here they were.  
“With me here, at least there’ll be maybe half the amount of casualties there would be otherwise.” Claire’s eyes widened in alarm. She grabbed his forearm and whispered anxiously; green eyes looking left and right as if she was afraid of being overheard.  
“You think that they’re going to die?” Owen laughed sardonically and made no effort to lower his voice.  
“Are you kiddin’ me? You take thirty people who just turned eighteen- for all intents and purposes, children- and let them work up close and personal with a bunch of nature’s best killers, if you don’t expect at least one or two of 'em to die then you're just kidding yourself.”  
“Owen!” Claire exclaimed, gripping his arm harder, “We’re taking every available precaution to keep those Legally. Consenting .Adults. As safe as possible.” Owen yanked his arm away from her. “Right, just like how you took every available precaution to keep Jurassic World safe from the Indominus.” Claire gasped and stormed away from him; her long midnight blue skirt fluttering behind her.  
“Claire, stop, I’m sorry okay-” Owen easily caught up with her and pulled the executive into his arms. “That was below the belt. I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I just don’t agree with this new project.”  
Claire pulled out of his embrace; meeting his eyes with a level gaze.  
“This is not going to be another Jurassic World. No matter how big this thing gets; I won’t let that happen. Never again.” Claire turned her back on him, twisting her hands nervously. “And you know that I never would have agreed to this unless I had no other choice.”  
Owen sighed. “Me neither, sweetheart,”  
“I just hope those poor bastards know what they’re getting into.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen Grady is a man of action, of fist fights, bristling five o’clock shadows, barked commands and the exciting tang of tequila. Boring paperwork is not how he likes to spend his friday nights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a beta, her tumblr url is chronicfandomspace, and she is wonderful!! Please go follow her.

Owen Grady is a man of action, of fist fights, bristling five o’clock shadows, barked commands and the exciting tang of tequila. Boring paperwork is not how he likes to spend his friday nights. Take into account that he’s also effectively trapped inside his office until he finishes said mound of paperwork, (if there was one thing she had learned about him, it’s that the only way to make sure everything got done on time was to make him do it all at once.) Claire figured that she’d find one very unhappy camper when she stopped by to bring him his dinner. Thus she’d come bearing treats. By pulling a few strings, she’d managed to procure not only the juiciest steak she’d seen since they’d left the mainland, but also a highly prohibited bottle of Jager. 

Alcohol was not allowed here given the danger of drunken people with access to carnivorous dinosaurs.

Her pointed pastel pink heels clicked against the drab gray linoleum floors. Honestly, Claire was not a fan of whoever was in charge of the interior design of this place. Aside from the heavily secured command room in the old Jurassic world’s control center, everything else left over from the park was off limits, and new buildings had been erected to form a base for their new project. 

Frankly, she’d cringed when the tour guide showed Claire her quarters. These new buildings very much lacked the elegance of Jurassic World’s offices. From the gray floors to the depressing black ceilings, the most glamorous part of this whole compound was the exposed brick accent wall found in the mess hall. 

Claire paused when she reached Owen’s office door, balancing the whiskey on the steak’s plate as she opened it. If the smaller mound of paper to the left of the bigger mound of paper was the complete pile, then he’d accomplished more than she expected. Owen’s head turned at the sound of the door opening. 

“Is that for me?” He asked. His mouth was practically watering at the smell of his favorite food. Amused, Claire smiled lightly. 

“Depends on how good you’ve been.” She said, watching him get frustrated. 

“God, woman, I don’t know what more you want from me. I attempted at least a fourth of it so far, and none of it was turned into a paper airplane,” He furrowed his brows and pouted. “Yet.” Claire laughed and set the plate down on the only clear spot of his desk. 

“I guess you have earned this. However...” she paused, Owen looking up at her expectantly, “Calling that a fourth is a little generous.” He growled but was more interested in tearing apart the steak than delivering a snappy comeback. They sat in silence for a little while. Owen offered her a bloody chunk, which she refused because A), red meat is disgusting and high in cholesterol, and B) she’d already eaten dinner half an hour ago. 

“May I see where you left off?” Claire asked, once he’d finished.   
“It was right after all the scary corporate death threats and medical information.” 

“I see.” 

She picked up the first few pages off the top of the larger pile and scanned them. 

“So these are the recruits…” she murmured. Owen grunted quietly in response. Claire lightly trailed the side of her finger across the list of names, as if she was comforting something small and afraid. 

“Any idea why none of their genders are listed?” Owen asked her. Claire sighed and met his eyes. 

“I couldn’t say for sure, but I do have my suspicions.” He arched a copper eyebrow at her. 

“Think about it. They pressure us into taking this job on, they make us tell our family we’re getting away from the press by moving to some remote country, and they even monitor our cell phones.” Claire started pacing the room agitatedly, and Owen’s sharp eyes followed her as she moved.

“These kids all have been researched extensively. They have a strong connection with animals, have a history of working with or near large predators, and they’re very young. Just old enough to sign a legally binding contract. At eighteen, what have they done? Bought a car maybe, graduated high school, they probably don’t even have a credit card.”   
She stopped walking and leaned her head against a wall. Sensing her distress, Owen stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. 

“They have very small, easily erasable files of information that make them a person in the federal government’s eyes. If what we’re doing is so dangerous then they want to leave as little record of those kids being here at all.” Claire sighed heavily again. She turned her head, staring into Owen’s jade green eyes. “So, no middle initials, and no genders on the paperwork.” 

Looking back down at the pages in her hands, she read the names in her head.   
Some of them like Clark, Rebecca, Niquita, or Logan were easy to place as male or female but others like Amari, Hayden, River and Emory were harder. The point was these were real people. Their lives were just about to begin and if she screwed up, Claire would have to be the one to write the letter home about some falsified tragic accident. She’d had to speak at too many funerals after the I-Rex had escaped.

From the Asset containment officers who she might as well have killed by sending them after a monster with tranquilizer guns, to her secretary Zara who she also killed by making her play babysitter because she couldn’t spend time with her own damn nephews, to maintenance workers she hadn’t even known- there’d been so much death since the field of the gentle apatosauruses’ corpses. 

She didn’t want to write any more letters. She didn’t know if she could, it had been hard enough to write the first ones. It was like every time her pen touched the paper it was the on switch to a big screen in her head that played only one movie. She wasn’t even 100% sure what she’d written because she’d only been able to see that day, watch them die again and again. Her heartbeat would start pounding against the backs of her eyes while her palms started sweating.

Before she knew it she would be up and reaching for the door feeling the compulsive need to call out her nephew’s names, how could she have left them alone, what kind of person leaves their family with their secretary surrounded by killers, the last thing she’d said to Zara was not to disturb her unless it was absolutely necessary oh god how could that have been the last thing she said to one of her only friends in this place doesn’t matter need to find Zach and Gray need to GET OUT...

“Hey. Eyes on me, Claire.” Owen’s hands were on her face, just like before she had no memory of walking towards the door or putting down the files she had been reading.

“Sorry. Won’t happen again. I could have sworn…”

“You could have sworn you’d handled it and could be professional, yeah yeah I’ve heard it before.” Owen pulled her in towards his chest in the warm tight embrace she’d gotten used to the past few months. She hated to admit how comforting they were.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This isn’t something you need to handle Claire.” His hands started running lightly over her hair. He always seemed to know how to talk her down, bring her back. “PTSD, survivor’s guilt, whatever you want to call it, what you went through was huge and life-changing and not in a good way. There’s no easy or textbook way to ‘handle it,’ and no one expects you to.”

She pulled away to look up at him. “What we went through. And I know you’re right, god knows I’ve heard it enough times between you and my therapist. I just wish it didn’t happen at the most inappropriate times without any warning. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to apologize for my outbursts at a staff meeting or family dinner. You’re lucky you just have nightmares.”

Owen tensed up under her hands and she knew that had been the wrong thing to say. “Sure. Lucky is just the word I would use when you can’t sleep through the night more than once a week and walk around feeling like a zombie.” He let her go and went back to sitting in his chair at his desk, re-attacking his paperwork with renewed concentration. 

“Insomnia is just what I need to keep me on my game when I’m about to train teenagers to work with more dangerous carnivores.” Claire twisted her hands in the fabric of her blazer and cringed.

“That may not have been the best choice of words.” Claire walked over and started to lightly rub his shoulders. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m still not very good at this open communication thing.” Owen leaned back in his chair and she deepened her massaging of his shoulders. “One day we’ll have figured this out. Until then, we have to help each other.” 

She wished she could say more, put into words how integral Owen had been to helping her cope the first few months. But she was sure deep down that he knew, they’d been together long enough he was used to her actions speaking louder than her words. She bent down to kiss him on the cheek. 

“Enough worrying, you have paperwork to finish.” She tilted her head to whisper in his ear; “I’ll see you when you get back, if you finish in time before I fall asleep.” 

“That’s just mean and you know it!” he shouted down the hallway after her as she turned and left, heels clicking all the way back to her quarters. Hopefully that should light a fire under him so he doesn’t spend all night in there doing paperwork just to avoid going to sleep. God knows they both needed to be on their toes tomorrow to meet the new recruits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you thought! I'm sorry to say that updates will probably be infrequent but I'll try not to have like month long hiatuses. If you liked this chapter, then please, comment, bookmark, give koodoos or all of the above. :3   
> My tumblr url is kaitlolswimmer and my beta is chronicfandomspace.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic, and my tumblr is kaitlolswimmer (an excellent example of the embarassing URL you made when you were 13) please tell me what you think! I really hope this takes off :3


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